About the AuthorHerman Force completed more than 28 years of active duty
and active reserve duty in the U.S. Army. In addition to his role in World
War II, he served in the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Force retired
as a major in 1969. His many decorations include the Bronze Star Medal
and Oakleaf Cluster for his World War II service. Force, AA’55 (R), BA’56 (T-H), MA’62 (T-H), received
his master’s degree in school psychology. He later gained New York and
New Jersey state certifications as a school psychologist and was employed
at the Lodi (N.J.) Department of Social Services, Board of Education. He
also has worked as a probation officer for the Bergen County Probation
Department. He now is retired and residing in Lodi. Force began chronicling his activities as a way
to inform others of what life was like on the front lines. He also has
lectured extensively about his experiences.

The 10th Armored Division was an unheralded unit, but
an integral one in the victory of the Allies. It was afforded the status
known as “Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force Secret Reserve.”
This meant that members removed all division shoulder patches and painted
out division markings on vehicles. Also, no mention of their activities
was to be made by any news source. Thus, the group was literally blacked
out. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied
forces in Europe, “loaned” the group to Gen. George Patton’s Third Army,
which enabled him to use the division any way he chose with one stipulation:
if Eisenhower wanted the division to be used elsewhere, Patton had only
24 hours to get it there. Maj. Herman Force wrote, “Patton immediately
decided that the only way he could keep us was to put our division in the
vanguard of his Third Army and keep us continually in combat. He reasoned
that it would be both impossible and impractical to release us within the
24-hour timeframe. This situation, contributed to many battle casualties.”
In total, 774 of the division’s men were killed in action or died from
wounds suffered in action, and 3,247 were wounded in action.

According to Force, AA’55 (R), BA’56 (T-H), MA’62 (T-H),
the division captured 56,000 Nazi soldiers; took more than 650 towns and
cities; participated in the capture of Metz, France, the first time the
Metz fortress had been captured in 1,500 years; played a major role in
the epic defense of Bastogne, Belgium; and seized the first major German
city (Trier) on March 2, 1945.

The members referred to themselves as “The Tiger Division”
and their motto was “Terrify and Destroy.”

Diary of a World War II Veteran

Retired Army Maj. Herman Force, AA’55 (R), BA’56 (T-H), MA’62 (T-H),
was a military policeman in the elite 10th Armored Division during World
War II. These excerpts from his diary chronicle his division’s grueling
actions as well as the emotions of the front lines.

The Three Fs of Combat

The question has often been asked, “What was it like in combat?” The three
“Fs” come to mind: fatigue, frustration and fear! Fatigue from lack of
sleep because it was almost impossible to find a comfortable place to sleep.
Add to this the enemy harassment and interdiction fire, every half hour
all night long. By doing this, the enemy hoped to disrupt our rest and
be lucky enough to hit a gasoline truck or ammunition truck. Now and then
they did.

Only three or four hours of sleep a night eventually drained one’s stamina.
For me, it also caused severe headaches.

Then there was frustration. Imagine that everything you do is stymied
by mud, snow, fog, wind, rain, freezing cold or intense heat. Then add
the lack of sleep plus very few hot meals. Meals generally were catch-as-catch-can,
seldom more than twice a day with “K” rations in-between. Along with all
of this, the physical daily effort to load, unload and carry cases of rifle
and machine-gun ammunition, five-gallon cans of gasoline, five-gallon jugs
of water, drums of oil, lubricants and thousands of rounds of artillery
and mortar shells was exhausting. Every action plus incoming fire added
to our frustration.
The last item was fear. We all agonized over the possibility
of death and of being badly wounded. From the very first action, this fear
was exacerbated as all around us: men had legs and arms blown off, received
grievous cuts and puncture wounds and lost their sight or hearing. Those
killed instantly were the “lucky” ones. Fear shadowed us constantly. We
were told never to stop to give aid to a fallen soldier; to do so would
make one a stationary target.

December 1944, Metz, France

The ancient city of Metz is situated on a flat plain with a small stream
running through the town. Surrounding Metz are six, 60-foot steep granite
hills. Over the centuries, these hills had been fortified, and no army
had ever overcome the six forts.

Fort Driant was the largest and toughest of the six. It was the German
headquarters and nerve center where artillery from all six was directed.
The telephone lines to the other forts had been buried deep underground
to avoid destruction. With such a high observation post, an approaching
enemy could be spotted miles away. [A critical location] Fort Driant was
therefore singled out for attack. Two infantry divisions were to hit it
from the front, and our 10th Armored Division was to encircle it and come
up from the rear. Preceding the ground action, our Army Air Force tactical
wing strafed and bombed the fort. Its bombs greatly helped the ground forces
as the 14-foot thick walls of Fort Driant were breached in several places.
Our heavy air attack also killed and wounded many defenders, but this action
did not make it a “pushover” because the fort was strongly defended.

If you have never experienced being near the heavy artillery (such as
a 240-mm howitzer) when they fire, you have missed quite a sight. I recall,
as a lad, a neighbor telling me that he had been in the A.E.F. [American
Expeditionary Force] in France during World War I. Even though he was in
the supply section several miles back, he claimed that he could sit outside
at night and read a newspaper from the light of heavy gun flashes. I really
didn’t believe him, but on this night outside Fort Driant, I saw it was
possible. When those heavies fired, a brilliant hang-fire flared at their
muzzles for several seconds. When shells exploded “over there,” their burst
also had a very bright hang-fire … the entire “front” was as bright as
day.

Immediately our armored columns sped up and began to launch the attack,
and the Nazi defenders opened up on us as well. Two things forcefully struck
me. First, there were those 14-foot thick walls of this fort. Each succeeding
“owner” had added to them. You could clearly see the original rock formation
from which this defensive position had been dug or blasted. The original
rock walls were about four feet thick. Next was a layer of brick and mortar
about six feet thick and, last was the most recent layer of four feet of
steel-reinforced concrete, which had been added by the Germans.

The second thing I noticed was that the defenders had killed their artillery
horses and had cut steaks from those animals and eaten them to sustain
themselves. These Germans had no choice because our division had cut off
all their supplies, and they were forced to eat what was available.

This was the first time an army had successfully attacked and captured
Fort Driant and the other five fortified hills.

The “Siegfried Line”

The Germans had built in 1939 a switch position on their western wall or,
as we called it, the Siegfried Line. The ends of this “base” were anchored
at the Saar and the Moselle rivers. The “line” itself consisted of the
longest, deepest tank trap I have ever seen, measuring 17 miles long, 40
feet deep and about 40 feet wide.

In front [was] barbed-wire concertina, which also stretched 17 miles.
In between the wire and dragon’s teeth were buried camouflaged Teller tank
mines. Ahead of the wire were antipersonnel mines called “shoe box mines”
and “Bouncing Bets,” so named for their characteristic of springing up
14 inches and exploding at knee level, destroying the legs of enemy soldiers.
These nasty little devils were set off by a soldier barely touching their
camouflaged trip wire.

Behind all of this was the Nazi’s main line of defense consisting of
pillboxes with interlocking fire and gun emplacements. These pillboxes
and gun emplacements were constructed of reinforced concrete and steel.
All together, this switch position, as well as the rest of the German West
Wall or Siegfried Line, was considered a very formidable defense work.
Its camouflage was especially effective and was augmented by four years
of undisturbed growth of natural vines and vegetation.

Having discovered the antipersonnel minefields, we simply ran several
heavy tanks back and forth over the mined area, exploding the shoe boxes
under them harmlessly. Of course, the Nazi defenders pelted our tanks with
heavy fire, giving away their gun emplacements and enabling our tanks and
artillery to zero in immediately on their defenses.

Our engineers and infantry cut the barbed wire and pulled sections of
wire out to allow access for forward movement of our infantry and tanks.
Because of the heavy machine-gun fire and mortar fire over the minefields,
our infantry would fall back, taking cover, and the engineers went through
gaps in the wire to remove the Teller mines. If there had been no fire
from the enemy, mine detectors would have been used. Because of incoming
heavy machine-gun and mortar fire, our men lay flat against the earth and
inched slowly forward, shoulder to shoulder, using bayonets or hunting
knives to push into the ground and locate the mines. When one was found,
a charge was laid above it, and everyone pulled back, allowing the mine
to be blown. Afterward, a line of men then moved forward again to locate
more mines.

In addition to enemy fire, there was another danger. Teller mines
were set off by a wire spider attached to a detonator. If an engineer shoved
his knife into the ground with too much force and hit one of these spiders,
that could also detonate a mine, lethal to that man and usually soldiers
near him as well.

After our men had pushed partway through various minefields, our division
was ordered out of the Saar-Moselle Triangle and sent north by Gen. George
Patton to strike the southern flank of [German Field Marshal Kurt] Von
Rundstedt’s attack on Bastogne.

The Defense of Bastogne

[The following account describes the defense of Bastogne, Belgium, which
the Germans targeted during the Battle of the Bulge.] Bastogne was critical
to German needs because it was a highway and rail center needed to move
supplies west and then north to support their armies. During the afternoon
of 20 December 1944, a German patrol picked up the mayor of Bastogne. He
was immediately hauled before the Fifth Panzer Army Commander, Gen. H.
Monteuffel, who asked him how much American armor was in the Bastogne area.
Since the honorable mayor wanted the Allies to win, he looked the German
commander directly in the eye and lied to him, stating there were 10 armored
divisions in Bastogne!

Miracle of miracles, the general believed him … From this point on,
Monteuffel became very cautious. After Bastogne was encircled at 1100 hours
on December 21, Monteuffel would launch an attack in one sector. Our “Fire
Brigade” would go out and drive the enemy back. Then he would try in another
sector. Once again our “Fire Brigade” did its job. It never occurred to
the Germans to attack in two areas simultaneously. If they had, Bastogne
would have fallen.

Dachau

For some time our Army Intelligence Branch (G-2) had been reporting data
and terrible stories told by survivors of the Nazi concentration camps.
Our 10th Armored Division’s drive toward the Bavarian border with Austria
carried us 10 miles south of the German town of Dachau. Our Seventh Army’s
42nd Infantry Division has just cleared the town and freed the inmates
about four hours before we arrived.

We saw with our own eyes where one regiment had stacked rifles and became
“orderlies” to try and save or help the unfortunate inmates. We saw two
warehouses filled to overflow, one with shoes of every kind and size from
babies’ to large men’s and women’s; the other with women’s dresses, men’s
and boy’s and children’s clothing. Both of these warehouses were so full
that windows and doors had burst open and the contents had cascaded onto
the ground.

We also saw the open pits with their iron grates where men and women
were forced to kneel with their hands tied. Those pits and grates were
still red with blood from the previous night’s executions. We saw dead
and naked bodies piled like corded wood. We saw the “showers” where no
water had ever flowed through the pipes — only poison gas. We also saw
the crematorium or ovens. We saw piles of ashes and partially loaded box
cars of those ashes ready for shipment to German farmers for use as fertilizer.

The worst of all were the “living skeletons,” starved almost to death.
I talked to one of them, a young German Jew, 25 years old. He was so weak
that he could only shuffle along slowly. He had lost 40 percent of his
weight and could not stand up straight. He was severely bent over, spoke
slowly and intermittently paused to catch his breath as he confirmed everything.
My heart bled for all of them … I returned to our division that day badly
shaken and, justifiably, greatly angered.

In spite of all that the 42nd Infantry Division and other agencies could
do, most of these “living skeletons” died. We tried to give them our army
rations but this only made them nauseated because the food was too rich
and greasy for their state of health. Armed search parties were sent out
and brought back all the milk and eggs needed. Unfortunately, a day or
two had been lost in the process and so most of these survivors passed
away. Ironically, on the opposite side of town there was a vitamin factory.

So that the German citizens of Dachau would fully understand the terrible
thing that had happened in these camps, all were given a conducted tour
of them. Most of these Germans knew something about the camps’ existence
but never viewed them nor admitted any knowledge of their existence. After
their “tour,” the Dachau mayor and his wife returned home and hanged themselves.

When the men of the 42nd Infantry first broke open the gates of this
concentration camp and realized the situation, they reacted with intense
anger against the Nazi guards, who had already thrown down their weapons
and quietly surrendered. The 42nd’s soldiers began to shoot and beat them
with their rifle barrels. This did not stop until their commanding general
stepped between the guards and his own troops and ordered them to stop,
telling them if they did not, “they would be no better than those bastard
Nazi guards.” With this direct order, his men ceased their attack.